Clemens Family Relocates to Europe: Day By Day

April 1 Friday – In Rome, Sam sent a cable to Henry C. Robinson:

Keep me posted by cable [MTP; also NB 31 TS 35].

Note: their communication during this period had to do with the Paige typesetter, and its move to Chicago, and Sam’s rights.

April 1 Saturday– Sam was en route on the Kaiser Wilhelm II to New York. Sam’s notebook:

Apl. 1. A wild wind & a wild sea yesterday afternoon. Several falls, but nobody hurt. Went to bed at 8 & slept till 8. Still a heavy sea this morning [NB 33 TS 5].

April 1 Sunday – The McClure Syndicate ran an “interview” with Sam made on Mar. 6, the night before he sailed on Mar. 7. Scharnhorst, Interviews 138-43 contains the complete text, which was called “Mark Twain Gone Abroad” in the St. Louis Republic, p.28; “Mark Twain and the Reporter,” Buffalo Express, p.9.; “Mark Twain Interviewed” in the Boston Daily Globe; and most accurately, “HE IS A PERFECT LIAR” in the Chicago Daily Tribune, p.38.

April 10 Sunday – From the San Francisco Chronicle, p.9, “Literature”:

Merry Tales is a little volume of old stories and sketches by Mark Twain, published in a new form. The volume includes among others that terribly tedious sketch called “Meisterschaft,” which the author may have thought funny, but which no one else ever did. If Mark Twain wants to “turn the barrel” he should exercise better judgment in making his selections for republication [Budd, Contemporary 323].

April 10 Monday – Sam’s notebook in N.Y.

April 10 Tuesday – Sam was en route to New York on the S.S. New York.

Meanwhile, Livy wrote to Sam from Paris:

My own darling: Three days since you sailed away from us. I have been so desperately sorry that I did not get a dispatch or something to you, but I love you just as tenderly as if I had. …

April 10 Wednesday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam sending an address of a N.Y. boarding house (Mrs. Rufus McHard, 61 West 17th St.) advising Sam to apply some time in advance at $25 per week. Joe referred to a “longish letter” he’d sent Livy, but he didn’t want her to answer it, just to know he’d mailed it. Joe offered cheer:

April 11 Tuesday – Sam was still somewhat delayed in New York, but wrote William Dean Howells from the Hotel Glenham that he was leaving for Chicago at 10 a.m. the next morning (Apr. 12), to be gone “some days, possibly a week” and would look in on him when he returned.

April 11 Wednesday – Sam was en route to New York on the S.S. New York.

April 12 Wednesday – Sam and Frederick J. Hall left New York at 10 a.m. bound for Chicago to check on developments for the Paige typesetter [Apr. 11 to Howells].

John Brisben Walker (1847-1931), since 1889 owner of Cosmopolitan, wrote to Sam with an offer:

April 12 Thursday – En route to New York on the S.S. New York, Sam wrote to Orion and Mollie Clemens, reporting on each family member in Paris. He asked them to forward the letter to Pamela Moffett as he was “a poor hand to write letters.”

April 13 Wednesday – The Hartford Courant divined that some of the stories in Merry Tales were reprints, p.6, “Mark Twain”:

There are seven of these funny stories, not all here presented for the first time….a very various assortment of tales, some funny and one or two not so droll (as the Fort Trumbull story of New London). But they are all more or less enjoyable, and some are particularly humorous [Budd, Contemporary 324].

April 13 Thursday – Sam and Frederick J. Hall arrived in Chicago sometime in the early afternoon. They took adjoining rooms in the Great Northern Hotel [Apr. 14 to Underhill]. In a letter to Susan Crane, Apr. 23, he claimed to have been sick since this day. Kaplan writes that Sam spent,

April 13 Friday – En route to New York on the S.S. New York at 7:30 p.m., Sam wrote to Livy:

We expect to be in New York about 10 tomorrow morning, Livy darling. I am waiting to be called to read — & the sea is increasing all the time. I am afraid I shall be alone — as was the case going over, except that Stead made some remarks. The sea was so rough that the music had to be given up. I think this sea is as rough as that one was.

April 14 Friday – At the Great Northern Hotel in Chicago, Sam wrote his Florence neighbor, Janet D. Ross, letting her know he’d asked agriculture Secretary J. Sterling Morton for some watermelon seeds, “and told him I had a key to your garden and that you kept no dog I was afraid of.” Sam enclosed Morton’s favorable response of Apr. 11, which he would have received in N.Y.

April 14 Saturday – The N.Y. Times noted that the steamship New York’s arrival was a “fast winter run of 6 days, 21 hours, and 51 minutes.” Sam’s arrival was noted [Apr. 15, p.9 “Arrivals from Europe”].

At 5 p.m. in New York at the Players Club, Sam wrote to Livy that he’d arrived at 10 a.m. and found his old room ready for him at 10:30 a.m.

April 14 Sunday – In Paris at 169 rue de l’Universite, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

Yours of the 2d [not extant] has come, and it is a very genuine pleasure to me to know that I am missed. I had such a good homelike time there that I missed the house and everybody in it and found it lonesome in the ship and hard to reconcile myself to the change.

April 15 Friday – A.L. Bancroft for Bancroft & Co., Pianos and Subscription books of San Francisco, wrote asking what Sam thought of “the ten-block system of numbering country houses,” or the “Contra Costa Plan” for numbering country houses (clippings encl. Jan. 10, 1891 and others from Contra Costa Gazette) [MTP].

April 15 Saturday – In Chicago Sam was abed with a bad cold — see Apr. 13 entry. With Sam laid up, exploration of the Paige typesetter manufacturing fell to Frederick J. Hall, who undoubtedly reported back to Sam that the machine was again disassembled.

At 6:30 p.m. Sam wrote to Joseph Medill, managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, on pictorial Great Northern Hotel stationery:

My Dear Mr. Medill —

April 15 Sunday – In New York at the Players Club Sam wrote to Livy at the Hotel Brighton in Paris.

April 15 Monday – Sam signed the agreement with Harper & Brothers sent by Henry M.Alden on Apr. 3 to publish JA and TS,Detective. At the foot of the third page Sam wrote,

If at any time during the serial publication of Joan of Arc my nom de plume should be appended to it as author, I am to receive, after that, $15 per 1000 words additional, thence to the end. This is the only omission I notice in the above [contract] S.L. Clemens, Paris Apl. 15/95 [MTP].

April 16 Sunday – In Chicago Sam was abed with a bad cold — see Apr. 13 entry.

In Florence, Livy wrote to him:

You did not tell me anything about sending an article or articles to the Cosmopolitan. Why did you do that? I should greatly prefer appearing in the Century or Harpers. What made you do it?…

April 16 Monday – In New York Sam wrote with optimism to Livy:

April 17 Monday – In Chicago Sam was abed with a bad cold — see Apr. 13 entry.

April 17 Tuesday – The New York Times, p.6 ran an article from the Minneapolis Times:

The Frog Two Thousand Years Old.

A college professor recently asked Mark Twain, “How old do you suppose your jumping frog story is?”

“I know exactly,” replied Mark. “It is fifty-five years old.”

“You are mistaken,” remarked the professor. “It is more than 2,000 years old. It is a Greek story.”